Does the data reveal declining dictatorship in Myanmar?

Andy Buschmann has collated data from a range of protest movements in Myanmar from 2011 to 2014. The numbers paint an interesting picture of political change and democratic reform.

After decades of isolation, Myanmar now finds itself in a period of social, economic and political change. With the coming to power of a quasi-civilian president, Thein Sein, in February 2011, far-reaching reforms were set in motion.

Since then, many observers have seen Myanmar in a transition towards democracy. However, it is not merely elections and a parliament that make up a representative democracy — basic civil liberties and civil engagement are also substantial components. A question that has remained understudied in the case of Myanmar is how these critical aspects have altered?

At a bare minimum the right to free expression, as well as freedoms of association and assembly need to be upheld in democracies, so citizens can develop points of view independent to the state and express these publicly. Such liberal rights are an essential condition to many dimensions and institutions of representative democracy, including free elections. But they are also fundamental to allowing a civil society to develop, in which groups articulate collective challenges to the state and, in this way, apply “pressure” for further reform in the direction of democracy. Furthermore, the freedom of expression, association, and assembly are part of universal human rights that represent the substantive concept of the rule of law.

So how can these basic civil liberties be expected to have changed in a political transition? For the least, they should have made considerable progress. In Myanmar, a positive evolution of civil liberties should be recognisable in practice from at least 2011.

In theory this evolution has been taking place. The military junta, the so-called State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), had, with Order No. 1/1988, originally banned the exercise of basic civil liberties in January, 1988. These rights were however introduced again after almost a quarter century with the signing of the new 2010 constitution.

But, in authoritarian regimes it is not unusual to preserve civil liberties on paper, namely in their constitution, while at the same time curtailing and tracking their practical exercise. For this reason it is important to take a look at whether civil liberties are practically exercised — in the form of public protests for example. This form of protest presupposes freedom of speech, assembly and association, permitting people to protest, organise, assemble and articulate their points of view. Protest assemblies are thus a good indicator of whether and how civil liberties are being practiced (and how the state responds towards such practices).

Drawing on data from the Myanmar Protest Event Dataset, containing 185 protest gatherings that took place in Myanmar between February 2011 and the end of 2014, four key findings are clear.

Table 1 shows the distribution of certain primary variables taken from the data set. What is clear at the outset is that protest activities have increased over time. The number of demonstrations and strikes increased more than fourfold from 2011 to 2014. At the same time, the size of the protests doubled over roughly the same time period. While protests in 2011 were primarily of short duration (under 24 hours), the majority of protests in 2014 were longer-lasting protest “camps.” This is reflected also in the frequency of serial protests –protests directly related to previously held protests. As for the protests’ geographical distribution, unsurprisingly, the majority of protests took place in cities, while only some took place in more rural areas.

These numbers demonstrate that basic civil liberties have become increasingly preserved. What is even more promising is that not just the quantitative aspects of protest activities have changed but also the qualitative characteristics. Particularly noteworthy, is that over time more NGOs, other movements and groups have openly characterised themselves as protest organisations. The National League for Democracy (NLD), which has held governmental power since March 2016, as well as its youth arm, was, implicated in only 10 per cent of all protests, making it clear that it was not simply just the NLD who conducted protests in Myanmar.

In 2013 and 2014 “Single Issue Movements” — groups pursuing one specific objective — also emerged as organising forces. An example of this is the “Committee to Deter Moving of the Gems Marketplace,” which in 2014 sought to block relocation of a market in Mandalay. That more groups are identified does not mean that overall more civil engagement is taking place — it may mean that already existing actors are “self-identifying,” and are being more open about their aims. However, both trends suggest an overall increase in breathing space.

In terms of focus, there has been a trend towards critical topics and issues of pluralism. Especially since 2013, protests have increasingly dealt with human rights and land grabs. Overall, one can assume from the data that leeway for civil engagement has increased over time.

As for assessing the stability of the rule of law, the question is how the state’s behaviour towards protest participants has changed? While more and changing civil engagement implies that repression is probably a thing of the past, it might have simply become “better hidden”. As Graph 1 makes clear, brute force tactics targeting, and intimidation of protesters, which I call ‘informal authoritarian methods’, has clearly declined.

These informal authoritarian methods were in many cases still being deployed in 2014. In particular, the intimidation of protesters by representatives of state security forces was essentially still ongoing. Above all, and particularly in 2013, targeted intimidation tactics took place in relation to demonstrations against the violent putdown of protest camps at the Letpadaung copper mine in November, 2012. By 2014 the application of these informal but autocratic methods had however clearly decreased. This finding is obviously positive so far as it goes. Countering this, the following graph shows what amounts to an opposing trend in the number of protester arrests.

Arrests for breaches of the law are first and foremost a formal tool of states, and those based on the rule of law. Closer analysis of laws serving to justify detainment of protest participants nevertheless shows that in Myanmar these fall far short of international human rights standards (see for example Article 12 of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 15/2011, also know as the “Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law”). Until recently, it was thus possible for peaceful protest participants to be sentenced to several years in prison simply for distributing “false information.” Although the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law has for example been reformed several times and a number of repressive stipulations removed, the number of imprisonments is nevertheless rising.

On 31 May 2016, parliament passed renewed reforms of the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law. It remains to be seen if in the future imprisonments connected to peaceful protests will fall or whether other laws will simply be used as grounds for court decisions and imprisonments (for example Paragraph 505b of the Criminal Code or the Telecommunications Law, which permits sentences of up to three years in prison for ‘defaming’ the government).

Up till 2014, progress. But what comes next?Since Thein Sein’s ascension to office and the consequent introduction of reforms, Myanmar’s protest activity has grown in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Since 2014 arbitrary force against protesters has gone down, a sign that the development of basic civil liberties has taken a positive turn. And without question, laws against protest participation are being reformed. For this reason, since the internationally lauded elections of 2015 and turnover of power to the new NLD government in 2016, it is to be expected that repression has also increasingly receded after 2014. For this to be proved we await the empirical evidence.

Andy Buschmann studied Comparative Politics at the Humboldt University Berlin, the City University of Hong Kong and the University College London. He has been been focusing on political transitions, democratisation and social movements research.

8 Responses

Ohn, you are addressing the no. 1 controversy in social movement research: What is the impact of protests (and movements) on the policy-making process? Most scholars will agree that even if there is not a direct impact then at least an indirect one. Protests matter in the sense that they raise awareness of alternative opinions and show politicians that there are organized people who disagree with them. In history that has been very powerful! Do you think the democratic opposition would be so (relatively) unified without the protests in 1988 and 2007? I doubt it and I am sure we would have not seen all the positive changes that we see today.

The difference professional pen pushers is how the Hlaing Thar Yar workers eat their pathetic meagre sustenance going by the name of food. No amount of hoarse screaming has done any little difference whatsoever. All they end up with is “Demonstration fatigue”.

As for the Latpadaung farmers they do get occasionally shot and beaten up.

Students currently in jail or detention, same.

Yes, it’s all highly romantic. But short of fancy feel good photogenicity, again, nothing changed.

Thanks Ohn. I get it. The Defence Forces have all the authority with no responsibility and the government has all responsibility with no authority. They allow to happen what they want or can live with, so long as it does not affect their power base. Home Affairs carries the administration of the country under it through GAD and guess who runs all of that. The Defence Forces through their 2008 decreed constitution have mandated themselves a separate head of power that sits outside the state governance architecture, plus state governance architecture. The current world wide preoccupation with Rakhine State, has all baying for the blood of the government, whereas they are really the wrong target. Defence Forces through the CIC General Min Aung Hlaing is the person they need to direct some calls for accountability. It is a 2008 Defence Forces constitutionally mandated ‘disciplined democracy’. Sure there are some openings, but has land confiscation stopped? Have human rights abuses stopped? Are peop,e trying to be silenced through defamation cases, that ignore the Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, using the Defence Forces USDP former government’s telecommunications law? is the bureaucracy sclerotic as some say? Yes.

The freedom to protest peacefully is also an important (but underrated) attribute of a rule of law culture. Legitimate public protest is an important element in signalling a desire to curb arbitrary exercises of power (regardless of whether or not the protest itself yields and immediate policy change)

Andy, It is a valuable piece of work as the rule of law is a slow acculturation. Indicative evidence you present here signals a positive trend, but it is besieged by many undercurrents right now. The judicial and legal system are super slow, but regard for civil liberties and rights is a start. I would make one correction and it is not a transition to a democracy but a transition to a ‘disciplined democracy’ as constitutionally decreed by the Tatmadaw. It will go as far or as little as they decide as it was done by decree not by a political compact. Hence the struggle of the peace and reconciliation process.

Thanks a lot for your accurate comment. No doubt that the development I indicate here is only one of many puzzle pieces that need to be put together to get a democratic regime. Also, your point with the judiciary is very true. However, if we take a look at (democratic) theory and also empirics (comparable cases), we might say two things: First, theoretically, to effectively grant the freedom of speech, assembly, and association as an autocracy without being responsive to the citizen’s demands makes it difficult (or even impossible) to endure. This is quite logical: autocracies usually perform badly in terms of providing their citizens with what they need/want. So there is a lot of grief and potential opposition. As long as the autocratic incumbents are repressing these voices, they can (normally) maintain their regimes. But once they allow the free airing of these grievances (normally directed at them in person) but are reluctant to step down, they will be sooner or later overthrown. Second, probably because of the first point, authoritarian regimes that have granted these basic rights in the past but withheld an open institutional power struggle (the core of democracy) have never sustained. The latter is also true for cases in which the incumbents have expressed their intention to build a “protected democracy” often insisting on themselves keeping veto power (e.g., Chile). To now transfer this to Myanmar: even if the Tatmadaw is aiming at a long-term “disciplined democracy”, it might be only a question of time when they will either have to completely withdraw from politics.

About the Author

Andy Buschmann studied Comparative Politics at the Humboldt University Berlin, the City University of Hong Kong and the University College London. He has been been focusing on political transitions, democratisation and social movements research.

Geographically, he has specialised in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular Myanmar and Hong Kong. Currently, he is working on anti-China protest in Myanmar at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in Hong Kong.